Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 20

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From today's featured article

James Chadwick (1891–1974) was an English physicist who was awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize in physics for his discovery of the neutron, and who led the British team that worked on the Manhattan Project during the Second World War to produce atomic bombs. He studied under Ernest Rutherford in Manchester and Hans Geiger in Berlin, where he demonstrated that beta radiation produced a continuous spectrum, not discrete lines as had been thought. He later became Rutherford's Assistant Director of Research at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. Chadwick's research led to his discovery of the neutron in 1932; he later measured its mass. In 1935 he became a professor at the University of Liverpool, which he made an important centre for the study of nuclear physics. During the Second World War, Chadwick carried out research as part of the Tube Alloys project to build an atomic bomb, and wrote the final draft of the MAUD Report, which inspired the U.S. government to begin serious atomic bomb research efforts. He later served as the British scientific advisor to the U.N. Atomic Energy Commission and as Master of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that the first U.S. revenue stamps (example pictured) were issued in 1862 to raise money for the American Civil War?
... that in 1920 Louise Pearce tested a cure for the fatal epidemic of African sleeping sickness in the Belgian Congo?
... that the Nobel Banquet is held each 10 December, after the Nobel Prize ceremony?
... that the composer Joseph Maria Wolfram became mayor of Teplice?
... that after his speech in the trial of Thomas Paine, a crowd unhitched Thomas Erskine's horses and pulled his carriage home?
... that certain crabs injected with calitoxin, found in the nematocysts of the sea anemone Calliactis parasitica, are paralysed within one minute?
... that Cindy Smart knows five languages and basic mathematics, but is "a little creepy"?

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In the news

Comet Siding Spring makes a very close approach to Mars and is observed via surface rovers and satellites.
At least 39 people are killed in Nepal's worst snowstorm disaster around the mountains of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri.
Jean Tirole (pictured) is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of market power and regulation.
Cyclone Hudhud strikes India and Nepal, killing at least 84 people.
Evo Morales is re-elected for a third term as President of Bolivia.
Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism against the oppression of children and young people.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Hong Kong protests – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

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On this day...

October 20: Birth of the Báb, a holy day in the Bahá'í Faith

1572 – Eighty Years' War: Soldiers of the Spanish Tercios waded across the river Scheldt at its mouth, walking overnight in water to chest height, to relieve the siege of Goes in the Spanish Netherlands.
1740 – Per the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Maria Theresa assumed the throne of the Habsburg Monarchy in Austria.
1944 – World War II: Fulfilling a promise he made two years previous, General Douglas MacArthur landed (pictured) on Leyte to begin the recapture of the entire Philippine Archipelago.
1977 – Three members of the American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd died when their chartered plane crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi.
2011 – Libyan Civil War: Muammar Gaddafi, the deposed leader of Libya, was captured during the Battle of Sirte and killed less than an hour later.

More anniversaries: October 19 – October 20 – October 21

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From today's featured list

Public holidays in Rhodesia, a historical region in southern Africa, were largely based around milestones in the region's short history. Holidays were instituted along traditional British lines, with some others created exclusively for Rhodesia. Occupation Day, held on 12 September each year, marked the anniversary of the arrival of the Pioneer Column at Fort Salisbury in 1890 (illustration pictured). Southern Rhodesia effectively became the entirety of Rhodesia in 1964 when Northern Rhodesia became independent as Zambia; Independence Day did not become celebrated in Rhodesia until Southern Rhodesia's colonial government unilaterally declared independence from Britain in 1965. All of these holidays were celebrated until 1979, when Rhodesia reconstituted itself under majority rule as the unrecognised state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. The country's public holidays were replaced soon after with alternatives intended to be more inclusive: President's Day, Unity Day and Ancestors' Day. These were in turn superseded in April 1980, when the country became the recognised state of Zimbabwe. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

A female Zygoballus rufipes, a species of jumping spider found from Central America through Canada. First described in 1885 by George and Elizabeth Peckham, there were initially thought to be two species (Z. bettini to the north and Z. rufipes to the south), but they have since been synonymized.

Photograph: Ryan Kaldari

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